COMPOSERS: Cook,Elgar and Lanquetuit,Howells,Liszt,Parry
LABELS: Priory
ALBUM TITLE: The Grand Organ of the Royal Albert Hall
WORKS: Works for Organ, various
PERFORMER: Gillian Weir
CATALOGUE NO: PRCD 859
Gillian Weir might not have used all 9,999 pipes in this premiere recording on the restored Albert Hall organ, but she’s certainly put the beast through its paces. From the spine-tingling reeds of Liszt’s Ad nos, ad salutarem undam and John Cook’s Fanfare to the suave strings of ‘Nimrod’, she leave no stop un-drawn in her quest to show off the instrument’s capacious resources. Perhaps ‘Nimrod’ is a little over-registered, and in the Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 her fastidious discipline can come across as a touch ‘buttoned-up’. But the Ad nos is magisterial, its 30-minute span commandingly paced, its grandeur and rhapsody held in equilibrium. As for the concluding Toccata by Marcel Lanquetuit, move over Widor! When word gets out, this humunguously glorious earful is going to rocket up the wedding charts. Best wait for the neighbours to go out, turn up the volume…and wallow! Paul Riley
Liszt, Howells, Parry, Cook, Elgar and Lanquetuit
Gillian Weir might not have used all 9,999 pipes in this premiere recording on the restored Albert Hall organ, but she’s certainly put the beast through its paces. From the spine-tingling reeds of Liszt’s Ad nos, ad salutarem undam and John Cook’s Fanfare to the suave strings of ‘Nimrod’, she leave no stop un-drawn in her quest to show off the instrument’s capacious resources. Perhaps ‘Nimrod’ is a little over-registered, and in the Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 her fastidious discipline can come across as a touch ‘buttoned-up’.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:57 pm